Blood Sunset Part 1

BLOOD SUNSET.

by Jarad Henry.

For the detectives. n.o.body sees what you see.

1.

TO GET WHAT YOU WANT, you need to know what you want. you need to know what you want. My mother first told me this when I was a young boy. Think hard about what you want, she said, for knowing what you want is more difficult than actually getting it. My mother first told me this when I was a young boy. Think hard about what you want, she said, for knowing what you want is more difficult than actually getting it.

It wasn't until a few weeks before my fortieth birthday that I fully understood what she'd meant. I was sitting in an unmarked squad car, tired and hungry and thinking about bed, when a call came over the dispatch that would change the direction of my life forever. Of course, I didn't know that then. If I had, I wouldn't have been nearly so blase about answering the call.

'VKC to any unit in the vicinity of Luna Park.'

I stifled a yawn, clicked the transmit b.u.t.ton and replied with my call sign: 'St Kilda 511.'

'You've got a deceased male, possible drug overdose. Location is at the rear of Cafe Vit, adjacent to Luna Park. The cafe owner found the body and is waiting for police. What's your status?'

I groaned. Fatal drug overdoses were always dispatched to detectives in the divisional Criminal Investigation Units. Usually they were straightforward and you were done with them within a couple of hours, but sometimes especially late at night you could be stuck forever waiting for the undertakers. I was scheduled to knock off at 7 a.m., and I wasn't interested in overtime that the boss wasn't interested in paying for.

I wished my partner, Ca.s.sie Withers, was with me. She'd received a call from the hospital saying her father was crook again and for the past half-hour I'd been filling in the night's running sheet. It was something Ca.s.sie normally did and it showed in my handwriting.

'What's your status, 511?'

I clicked the mike. 'Still one up, but I'll handle it. Have the undertakers been dispatched?'

It was a stupid question, more a protest than anything. The dispatcher never called the undertakers unless they were requested to by the investigating officer; in this case, me.

There was a period of silence while the dispatcher thought of a polite answer.

'We'll wait for your instruction, detective,' she said eventually.

'Fine. ETA two minutes.'

Warm coffee sloshed in the foam cup between my legs as I pulled away from the kerb. Fitzroy Street, the main thoroughfare through St Kilda, was calmer than it had been all night. The pubs and restaurants lining the strip were now closed. Only a few nightclubs and convenience stores were still open.

Tall palm trees were silhouetted against the glow of streetlights as I coasted along the Esplanade towards Luna Park. With the window half-down, even in the pre-dawn I could tell tomorrow would be another hot one.

Soon I was at the Acland Street junction where the only signs of life were a row of taxis idling outside the strip clubs and a group of leftover disco-heads munching burgers and fries at McDonald's. Scanning the side of Cafe Vit, I spotted a loading bay at the northern end of an empty car park. I parked and activated the covert blue and red lights on the dashboard, then gathered my clipboard and daybook, opened the boot and took a torch and a handful of gloves from a dispenser. Almost as an afterthought, I slid my digital camera into my pocket, then walked towards the loading bay. A chubby man in a white shirt stepped out from a doorway at the rear of the cafe and hurried over, his stumpy legs moving quickly beneath a round belly, like a penguin. Another overweight restaurant owner, I mused. All that food can't go to waste.

'Morning, sir,' I said. 'I'm Detective Sergeant Rubens McCauley. You called the police?'

'Yes, yes, thank G.o.d,' the man said, wiping a hand across his meaty face. 'I have dead body in back. Come see.'

A European accent; Dutch or possibly German I thought. We walked to the rear of the cafe and I noted the loading bay was fenced in at the sides but there was no gate, meaning a person could easily access it. I stopped the man from going any further.

'Where's the body, sir?'

'He is in back, against bin.'

'Just wait here, please. What's your name?'

'I am Karl. Karl Vitazul.'

He held out his hand for me to shake but I was busy opening my daybook. It wasn't the place for handshakes anyway.

'Would you mind spelling that for me, please, sir?' I asked.

He did and I wrote it down. 'Thank you. Do you know the person?'

'I recognise him, but I do not know him.'

'You recognise him? Is he a customer?'

Vitazul frowned, shook his head. 'No, but he visit the park often.'

I stared over at the O'Donnell Gardens, a patch of parkland that backed onto the rear of the cafe. Black, still mounds lay beneath the palm trees. On warm February nights the homeless didn't need the shelters.

'Is he a vagrant?'

Vitazul shrugged.

Deciding not to ask any more questions at this stage, I waited as a police divisional van pulled up next to my car. Our combined flashing lights made the loading bay look like a Vegas show. I watched as Kim Pendlebury stepped out of the van. We'd worked several cases together over the years, including one where her partner had been executed during an underworld war. Kim was a tough cop and a competent investigator, but the case had taken its toll and she'd subsequently transferred out of the detective bureau back into uniform.

'Okay, Mr Vitazul,' I said, 'here's my card. We may need to talk in a minute. For now, this is Sergeant Kim Pendlebury. She's going to ask you some more questions.'

As Kim took Vitazul away, I snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and followed Kim's partner, a younger cop named Mark Finetti, towards the loading bay. Finetti was another story. We'd b.u.t.ted heads on more than a few occasions, mostly because he'd once had a fling with my partner, Ca.s.sie, and couldn't get over her promotion to the detective unit, but we'd come to an unspoken understanding since my return to work and now managed to get along. He was a c.o.c.ky, arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and about as subtle as a flying brick, but there was a place for blokes like him in the job. In joints like St Kilda, you needed the brawn as much as the brain sometimes.

'Another druggie croaks himself on my shift, third since Christmas,' Finetti said, sweeping the torch beam back and forth. 'Why do I always get the s.h.i.t work?'

'Probably do it because they know you're on duty,' I joked. 'All that muscle you got terrifies them, makes them more nervous than a turkey at Christmas time.'

'Yeah, righto.'

'I'm serious. Soon as word gets out Big Bad Finetti's on the prowl, they all whack up whatever they've got.'

We stepped through the gates to the smell of stale alcohol and food sc.r.a.ps. I used my torch to navigate alongside a rubbish bin so as not to dirty my shirt.

'Got one a while back in his car,' Finetti said. 'Last year. p.r.i.c.k didn't even make it a hundred metres down the street after he scored. Carked it right outside the rehab on Grey Street. Reckon they add that to the road toll?'

'Nah, just the Finetti toll.' I poked him in the back as we squeezed between a row of boxes and crates stacked waist high. 'Still order your uniforms a size too small, show off those pecs?'

'p.i.s.s off. Haven't seen you in the weights room lately, McCauley. What's up, getting too old? Got a hernia? Or wait, maybe you just wanna go when n.o.body's '

Finetti stopped mid-speech and an uncomfortable silence ensued. It had been a month since my return to work and everyone was pretty used to me being back. It didn't help that I showed no obvious signs of physical injury from the shooting. I half-expected Finetti to apologise but was glad he didn't.

We stopped at a small pile of gla.s.s on the ground, which looked like it was from a light bulb. I shone my torch beam at the roof and, sure enough, a globe had been smashed.

'Finetti, get your pen out.'

'Already have. Let me guess, you want me to ask Vitazul about the globe?'

'Just make a note about it. We'll ask him later.'

A row of wheelie bins ab.u.t.ted the rear wall and a set of stairs rose to the back door. I saw the feet first, two runners illuminated in the torch beam. As I approached, I tucked my tie inside my shirt so it wouldn't drape over the body, a trick I'd learnt several years back when I'd ruined a new tie at a crime scene, almost doing the same to the evidence. That sorted, I rolled my sleeves up and ran the torch beam from the feet to the head, realising with a start that the deceased was a teenage boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen. I'd expected him to be older, but I kept that to myself and proceeded to a.s.sess the scene. The boy was slumped against one of the bins. A belt was wrapped around his left bicep, a syringe protruded from the crook of his arm and a trickle of dried blood ran down to his wrist. His head sagged, eyes closed, mouth loose and drooping. Strands of brown hair hung from beneath a red baseball cap.

Finetti checked his pulse and said, 'Nada! Cold as leftovers, too. Probably checked out sometime last night.'

I squatted beside Finetti and peered under the boy's cap. The pale face jolted me with the memory of my best mate from high school, Tommy Jackson, who'd gone the same way. The similarity in build and facial structure were remarkable. At the age of eighteen, Jacko had left our childhood town of Benalla and moved to Melbourne, after which I'd never seen him again.

I stepped back from the body and breathed out long and low. It had been almost twenty years since Jacko's death and I didn't want to think about it now.

'What's the matter?' Finetti asked. 'You know him?'

'No.'

'Then what?'

'Never mind.'

He gave me a questioning look, then said, 'Mate, if you want to sit this one out, that's no biggie. Maybe you should take the statement and let Kim work the body?'

I rolled my left shoulder and tried to loosen muscles and ligaments that gripped my joints like an octopus. A familiar metallic taste washed around my mouth.

'Want me to get Kim?' he prodded.

'I said never mind never mind.'

Finetti rested the clipboard on his knee. 'Don't get defensive, Rubes. I'm just saying I understand. You've only been back on deck a month and this is your first stiff.'

'Since I've been back,' I corrected. 'Not my first.'

Finetti raised his palms. 'All right, fine. What now?'

'Tell me what you see.'

'Expensive runners, for a start. Seiko watch, probably stolen. New jeans and T-shirt too. Ditto for that.' Finetti lifted the boy's T-shirt and patted the front pockets of his jeans. 'Feels like a wallet in here. Let me get it out, see who he is.'

'Careful,' I said. 'Watch for needles. Better double up.'

He pulled on a second pair of gloves and gingerly removed a canvas wallet, handing it to me. The contents, or lack of, reflected the boy's adolescence. No driver's licence. No credit cards. Only a debit card.

'Dallas James Boyd,' I read out. 'There's a Medicare card in here too. Same name.'

'A Medicare card of his own?' Finetti repeated. 'Clearly didn't live with his parents.'

I emptied the remaining contents, counted out a few dollars in coins, unfolded a piece of paper and held it under the torch beam. It was a receipt from the 7-Eleven on Fitzroy Street.

'Looks like he bought a twenty-dollar mobile phone recharge card,' I said. 'Dated yesterday, er, last night, 10 p.m. Make a note to confirm it matches his mobile phone.'

I also found a business card behind the debit card for a youth worker named Will Novak. I knew Novak, he ran a hostel up on Carlisle Street and had been in St Kilda for as long as I could remember. The kid must have been a client.

I handed the wallet back to Finetti, who placed it in an evidence bag before checking the other pocket.

'Beer bottle lid,' he said, turning it in his hands. 'Amstel, boutique beer, not the sort you'd expect a teenage junkie to drink.'

I shrugged, unsure what to make of it, if anything, and told Finetti to doc.u.ment the item and bag it. Next I studied the boy's arm and the belt around his bicep, dictating my observations and taking photographs.

'Deceased doesn't appear to have any recent track marks. There's a leather belt around his arm, makeshift tourniquet. Needle is a Terumo brand, normally a.s.sociated with injecting drug use. It appears new.'

Shining the torch around the base of the body, I found a wrapper for the syringe alongside a spoon and cigarette lighter. I asked Finetti to chart the location of each item in his notes then shone the torch around the area. Squatting down again, I checked inside the boy's mouth and looked under his T-shirt but still couldn't find what I was looking for.

'Where's the lid?' I said.

'Lid?'

I pointed to the wrapper next to the body. 'This syringe is brand new, so where's the orange lid?'

Finetti swept his torch from side to side, but couldn't find it either. 'Could be anywhere, maybe it's under the body. Let's take a look.'

He set his torch down and gripped the boy under his armpits, ready to hoist him up, but I put a hand on his wrist before he had the chance.

'Gentle, mate. He's a kid.'

'So what, he's dead.'

'Just preserve the scene. Evidence, remember?'

Finetti stared at me a long moment. Even in the dim light I could see what he was thinking.

'Sometimes things are just what they seem, McCauley. This is just a p.i.s.sy overdose, that's it. An accident accident. We had one last week, two the week before, this is no different. Junkies at large, mate.'

'Yep, righto. Lift him and I'll have a look.'

Without much effort, Finetti propped the boy up and I shone my torch on the ground beneath his body, but still no lid.

'So where is it then?' I said when Finetti put the boy down.

's.h.i.t, I don't know. Could be under one of these bins, could've fallen into a crack or down a drain.' He shone his torch on the boy's face. 'He could've swallowed it for all you know. Either way, who gives a s.h.i.t?'

Maybe Finetti was right. The kid could have put the lid in his mouth while whacking up and accidentally swallowed it as the effects of the heroin took hold.